Mason mom: I was abducted and held captive for 8 months. This is my story.

Shells and a burned police car are scattered on an empty square outside a burned-out publishing house in central Grozny, Russia, Thursday, Dec. 4, 2014. A gun battle broke out early Thursday in the capital of Russia’s North Caucasus republic of Chechnya, puncturing the patina of stability ensured by years of heavy-handed rule by a Kremlin-appointed leader. The violence erupted hours before Russian President Vladimir Putin began his annual state of the nation address in Moscow. (AP Photo/Musa Sadulayev)(Photo: Musa Sadulayev, AP)

In the small room with faded wallpaper where she would be held captive for months, there was only one window. And it was painted black from the outside – so no one confined inside could chip off the paint.

This was October of 1994. Elena Nikitina had celebrated her 21st birthday three weeks earlier.

She wore her favorite black dress and had been partying with friends at a trendy restaurant decorated like a pirate ship in Astrakhan, Russia. It was only a few steps down an alley from the first-floor apartment she shared with her mom.

That night, Nikitina got into an argument with her boyfriend. Exasperated and upset, the woman studying to be a teacher left the restaurant to walk home alone.

Elena Nikitina before she was abducted and held captive for months during a civil war in Russia.(Photo: Provided/Elena Nikitina)

She doesn't remember exactly what happened next, until she woke up in a car surrounded by strange men speaking a foreign language. They would drive through the night, taking her to the 12-by-12-foot room that would become her prison.

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More than two decades later, Nikitina lives a quiet life in Mason.

At 44, she is a real estate agent and single mother. She homeschools her 16-year-old daughter, who has already started looking at colleges.

Elena Nikitina, of Mason, was abducted in a ransom plot when she was 21. She was held captive for eight months. Now, she's written a book about her experience.(Photo: Provided)

Nikitina emigrated from Russia to the United States in 2000 and was granted political asylum because of her terrifying ordeal.

For years she wanted to write a book detailing her abduction, but could never bring herself to relive the pain. She had locked those memories away long ago.

But when she finally started to write, Nikitina told The Enquirer in an interview, she couldn't stop.

This is her story.

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A burned-out market pavilion is seen through a bullet riddled broken window in central Grozny, Russia, Friday, Dec. 5, 2014. Security forces in the capital of Russia's North Caucasus republic of Chechnya stormed two buildings yesterday, Dec. 4, including a school, during fierce gun battles with militants that left at least 19 dead, authorities said.(Photo: Musa Sadulayev/AP)

Nikitina brushed her teeth with her finger.

When she had to go to the bathroom, she knocked on a gray door and a man with a machine gun would lead her to a bathroom with no toilet paper.

To take a shower, she would pour cold water onto her underwear and rub it on her body like a wash rag. She'd then put the wet underwear back on before she was led back to her room.

Nikitina was eventually told she could return home after her mom, a bookkeeper, paid her captors $300 million rubles – or more than $4 million.

And as the days and weeks turned into months, the 21-year-old's once form-fitting black dress now hung off her like a sack.

Eventually, as fantasies of SWAT teams breaking into her room and rescuing her faded, Nikitina started going to sleep and hoping she wouldn't wake up.

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After a brutal civil war began, Nikitina's captors drove her to Grozny, the capital of Chechnya. They parked near a tree where she says decapitated heads of Russian soldiers decorated the branches like Christmas bulbs.

Arial view of a protest rally in downtown regional capital of Grozny on Monday, Jan. 19, 2015. Protesters have gathered in the Russian region of Chechnya to rally against the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo. Chechen central Mosque is at right. (AP Photo/ Musa Sadulayev)(Photo: Musa Sadulayev, AP)

While she struggled to comprehend what was in front of her, her captors laughed and spoke of great victory.

Then, they took Nikitina to a post office where she spoke to her mom for the first time in months. Before the call ended, a man told her mom if she didn't have the money in three weeks he would mail her daughter's toe to her.

Nikitina's mom eventually stopped going to work and rarely left her home at all, afraid to miss another phone call. But as bloody battles raged across southern Russia, communication soon became impossible.

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After eight months, Nikitina was taken to a remote mountain village and locked in a cellar. It seemed like her captors didn't know what to do with her anymore, and she feared she had been sold as a slave.

Elena Nikitina pictured with a friend in Russia.(Photo: Provided/Elena Nikitina)

Nikitina spent about a week there before the sound of bombs and gunfire made its way to the tiny village. The morning after an attack, she found the cellar door unlocked.

When she climbed out, she felt like the only survivor of a nuclear war. Her captors had apparently abandoned her. She walked toward the mountains, where she had heard the shooting coming from.

She was barefoot when she came across Russian soldiers and waived a white handkerchief.

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Elena Nikitina is pictured a few days after she escaped abduction in Russia. She was 21 at the time.(Photo: Provided/Elena Nikitina)

Nikitina could never fit in back home, and she often felt isolated from her friends. They stayed the same, but she had changed so much.

No one asked her what happened, probably trying not to upset her, but it hurt all the same. That's why she decided to write her book – "Girl, Taken" – which was published last year.

She used to think of herself as a victim. Now, she calls herself a survivor.